


darling, so it goes

by Jemi



Category: Phantom Manor (Ride)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29429646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemi/pseuds/Jemi
Summary: melanie receives her first glimpse of sunlight on the horizon after a lifetime of night.
Relationships: Melanie Ravenswood/Melanie Ravenswood's Fiancé
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	darling, so it goes

It seemed only right that they were in the gardens when the inevitable occurred. 

There weren’t many other places in and around Ravenswood Manor that Melanie held any sort of fondness for. To her, its grand, sweeping halls and richly decorated rooms were little more than an illusion, poorly masking the iron bars always present in her mind’s eye no matter where she looked. But, in the gardens, at least, there was fresh air and growing things and places where her father’s ever-watchful eye could not reach her. Wandering through flowering trees and lush hedges was the closest she could come to freedom in the daylight hours, when her nightly, clandestine trips to the Lucky Nugget weren’t enough.

A more private escape was, however, not what Melanie had initially been seeking. On most nights, she adored the liveliness of the saloon for the stark contrast it was to the dour, gloomy world of Ravenswood Manor. For hours at a time, she would sit amidst the patrons, reveling in the air of high-spirited light and laughter and the company of those she’d come to know as friends. Indeed, it was often immensely difficult to wrest herself from their presence and return to her father’s house, even when the hour had grown late and the rest of the town lay slumbering outside.

Tonight, however, had felt somehow different. When she’d confided as such in Lawrence, he’d gently suggested that perhaps she simply wasn’t much in the mood for socializing. At first, Melanie had dismissed this idea as patently ridiculous -- how on earth could she possibly feel such a way when her days were filled with little more than loneliness and monotony? However, as the thought had continued to turn itself over and over in her mind, the closer it had seemed to falling neatly into place.

She didn’t like it. As a matter of fact, the idea that she might be robbed of even this small taste of freedom was enough to draw more ire than Melanie would have cared to admit. Perhaps that was why, in an abrupt fit of recklessness, she’d suggested that Lawrence join her in retiring to the manor’s gardens for the night. 

Any proper gentleman would have blanched at the idea of being so very alone anywhere with a woman -- never mind the fact that they’d be traipsing about right under her father’s nose. It was undoubtedly the sort of thing that the high society of Thunder Mesa (or, whatever passed for it) would have delighted in gossiping over, should the two of them have been discovered together.

But, Lawrence was, to Melanie’s frequent relief, not a proper high-society gentleman. As such, the suggestion that they spend a few stolen hours alone together only made him grin in a way that stirred an odd, fluttering sensation in Melanie’s chest as he agreed. 

Thus, she’d allowed him passage through the house’s wrought-iron gate, up the carriage road and into the vast expanse of the Ravenswood gardens. Before long, they’d settled themselves beneath one of the numerous weeping willow trees her father had imported, basking in the moonlight that filtered between leaves overhead. In the distance, Ravenswood Manor itself loomed, dark and imposing, against the night sky. Despite its ever-ominous presence, Melanie held no fear that they might be discovered. She’d long since learned which parts of the garden were far enough away that there was no chance of being spotted from the windows.

For a time, they simply sat together beneath the willow branches, talking of nothing in particular, just as they had for countless nights in the Lucky Nugget. It never really mattered, Melanie had always found, what it was that she and Lawrence discussed. She’d have happily listened to him talk about anything at all for hours and hours on end, no matter how strange or esoteric. 

More strikingly, Melanie had never once doubted that Lawrence felt very much the same way about her. Too often, she felt like a ghost in her own existence, forever unheard and unseen by those who wished her silent and submissive. In her fouler moods, Melanie caught herself thinking that her father and mother would have been far more content to have a porcelain doll for a daughter. A doll, after all, would not protest half so much about being kept behind glass at all hours and only released when there were those about to admire its prettiness. 

How strange, then, to be so certain that Lawrence would never treat her in such a way. In all her life, Melanie had never known anything like the peace that his presence offered her. True, their positions in life could not have been more different, but she’d never gotten the impression that Lawrence saw her as anything more or less than what she was. He was gentle and sweet, he made her laugh and smile in a way that no one had ever bothered to before. Talking to him, simply  _ being  _ with him, was like breathing clean, fresh air after a lifetime of inhaling lungfuls of smog.

Always, it seemed, these words were on the very tip of her tongue, just waiting to be released whenever the two of them were allowed a few precious moments of conversation alone. Melanie was certainly no stranger to speaking her mind -  _ heaven forbid _ \- and yet the idea of being so frank where this particular subject was concerned always prompted that strange fluttering in her chest all over again. She’d have called it anxiety, perhaps; but, what reason did she have to be anxious when it came to someone who had become such a dear friend to her?

“You’re so different,” she spoke up at length, when they had reached a lull in their idle conversation. “Different from anybody else I’ve ever known.”

Her statement was met with an amused chuckle. “And, is that a good thing?” Lawrence asked, mirth flashing in his eyes as he turned his head to look at her.

“Of course it is,” she replied, letting out a quiet laugh of her own. “You know the sort of company my father keeps. I think—“ Melanie hesitated and looked away, her gaze focused on some point in the far distance. By the time she spoke again, her voice had gone rather uncharacteristically quiet. “...Sometimes I think you’re one of the only people who’s ever really  _ listened _ to me.”

This statement was met with silence, stretching on for so long that Melanie’s heart began to pound in her chest. Surely, she thought, she couldn’t have spoken out of turn with him.  _ Surely _ , she hadn’t been reading far too much into their conversations in the saloon and the glances they’d steal whenever her father deigned to take her into town. Somehow, it seemed, Lawrence was always there in the town square on those rare occasions. He never approached, of course, for fear of incurring the ire of Henry Ravenswood, but he was always present, forever catching her eye and flashing her secretive smiles whenever her father’s back was turned. 

She risked a glance in his direction and immediately regretted it. There was something in Lawrence’s expression as he watched her that made Melanie’s heart squeeze painfully in her chest, a quiet, pensive sort of sorrow that she’d never seen him wear before. It wasn’t pity - she couldn’t for the life of her imagine Lawrence ever being so patronizing - but something far softer, something she couldn’t quite name or perhaps that she was far too frightened to.

“... I shouldn’t be.” he told her, his voice uncharacteristically solemn. “Sounds to me like all those rich folks are missing out.”

Heat rushed to Melanie’s cheeks before she’d even properly registered his words and, without thought, she reached up a hand in some cursory effort to cool them. “...Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Montgomery.”

He laughed, but even in the stillness that surrounded them, the sound was subdued. “I mean it, Mellie. You’re—“ Lawrence stopped himself short and, in that moment, Melanie would have sworn her heart skipped a beat in tandem. Suddenly breathless, she waited, watching as hesitant uncertainty danced across his features.

At last, he spoke again, haltingly. “...You deserve better. Than that.”

She very nearly replied that he’d be the first to say so, but as her eyes met his again, the words died away on her parted lips. For a long, tentative moment, the two of them gazed at each other, utterly transfixed. In the back of her mind, Melanie was certain she’d admired Lawrence’s eyes on more than one occasion -- but somehow, it seemed, she had never truly  _ seen  _ them until this very moment. They gleamed like burnished gold in the shafts of moonlight that surrounded them, bright and beautiful and lively, filled with everything she adored about the man that sat by her side.

Everything she…

Oh --  _ oh _ . 

“...Can I kiss you?” he asked, and his voice was so soft, so breathless, and so laden with longing that Melanie felt her heart ache with sympathy.

_ He thinks I’ll say no,  _ she realized -- and then, a moment later:  _ He wouldn’t touch me if I did. _

The certainty with which this simple fact struck her was enough to steal the breath from her lungs. A myriad of memories played before her eyes: her father’s hands clasped over her shoulders like a pair of iron vices, the suitors he presented her with snatching up her hand to smother it in kisses. They might as well have been searing her skin with iron brands, all of them, but she had never, never been granted the power to put a stop to it. 

Even as a little girl, Melanie had always shied away from being touched, much to the dismay of all those who wished her complacent and docile. A lady of her standing was expected to be open and gracious, demurely accepting any proper show of affection bestowed upon her by prospective suitors. She’d never understood it. To her, every unwanted touch had never failed to make her feel as though there were thousands of needles pricking beneath her skin whenever yet another man felt himself entitled to her affections. 

Lawrence had offered his hand to her earlier, when they’d arrived. It had been an almost absurdly gallant sort of gesture, the sort that belonged in stories of knights and their ladies, meant to help her down from Black Thunder’s saddle. It only occurred to Melanie now that he had  _ waited  _ for her to place her hand in his, had wanted it to be her decision and hers alone. She’d hardly even noticed that they’d touched at all, he’d pulled away so quickly and so smoothly after her boots had touched ground.

The gesture was inconsequential, and yet its full realization was enough to send Melanie reeling. In the past, her father had spoken endlessly of how crude and vulgar the men who worked in his mines could be. They were dangerous, he’d insisted, and they’d have only one thing in mind if they were ever allowed to set eyes on her. But, here and now, Melanie found that she couldn’t recall the last person to have treated her with the consideration Lawrence offered her so easily — if, perhaps, such a thing had ever happened at all.

_ Can I kiss you? _

The breath she’d been holding at last shuddered loose from her chest. Melanie allowed herself one moment more of studying the features of the man she had somehow, without even her own notice, come to  _ love _ before she spoke.

“...Yes,” she breathed, and although the sound was so soft that it bordered upon insubstantial, Melanie could have sworn the entire garden echoed with it. She had but a moment to reflect upon this, however, for in the next, Lawrence had closed the scant distance that remained between them and every coherent thought in her mind abruptly faded away to nothing.

The kiss was tentative, at first. It felt, for all the world, just the way she’d always imagined them to be when she’d read about fair maidens bestowing kisses of true love upon their paramours in her childhood storybooks. But after that initial moment of pleasant shock passed, Melanie found that the sweet, hesitant brushing of his lips against hers was nowhere near enough to satisfy her. 

Reaching upwards, she buried her hands in Lawrence’s dark locks, relishing in just how soft and lovely his hair felt between her fingers. With an insistence that nearly bordered on  _ impatience _ , Melanie tugged him close, her lips parting and her head angling to deepen the kiss. Dimly, she heard him let out a low, startled sound, but no more than a moment later, however, he was smiling into their kiss. Warmth like she’d never known before lit up Melanie’s heart as if it were a furnace, radiating outwards until she might as well have been bathing in the desert sunshine.

( _ No wonder, then, she’d reflect for decades upon decades to come, that her mind would always and forever equate her Lawrence with the warmth of the sun. _ )

How long it was before they were forced to part for air, Melanie couldn’t have said. Once they did, however, she was unable to bring herself to part from him for long. Without a moment’s hesitation, she leaned forward to press their forehead together, her ears filled with the ragged rhythm of their breathing and the soft chirrup of crickets all around them. Her hand came to rest lightly against his chest and beneath her palm, Melanie could feel the steady beating of Lawrence’s heart.

It was all so very  _ real _ . And how strange it was, Melanie found herself thinking, to be unable to stop  _ smiling  _ when she couldn’t remember the last time she’d not struggled to maintain such an expression.

Lawrence, it seemed, felt very much the same. Carefully, he reached up a hand to cup her cheek and although his hands were rough and calloused from days spent laboring in her father’s mines, Melanie could only marvel at how gentle his touch was. “We’re gonna be in for a whole world of trouble if they ever catch us,” he murmured, but his tone was far too giddy for the sentiment to land as any sort of warning.

“I don’t care,” Melanie breathed, her hand gripping at the fabric of his vest. “To hell with them —  _ all _ of them.”

The rich, warm sound of his laughter as she pulled him in for another kiss was enough to make Melanie’s heart soar. This time, as their lips met, it felt like a vow -- a promise of the happiness that had always felt so far out of her reach, like the first glimpse of sunlight on the horizon after a long, desolate night.

( _ Over a century later, when their lips at last met again after decades of suffering, she felt that promise fulfilled. _ )

**Author's Note:**

> this could have so easily been canon-compliant but than rickolas rat tried to tell me my own daughter was going to be alone on valentine's day and you KNOW i'm not gonna stand for that slander


End file.
